Church Reform

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Church Reform

A Corrupt Medieval Church? One of the most common modern cliches about the medieval Church is that it was corrupt and that its unwillingness to institute reforms resulted in the division of Christendom into separate Christian Churches during the sixteenth century. There are many historical weaknesses with this argument. It is based on the idea that the Church had the power to control the behavior of every bishop, cleric, and monk throughout Christendom, and it overlooks the many reform movements that punctuated medieval Church history. Certainly medieval clergymen felt at various times that the Church was not living up to its mission or aspirations, but one of the primary reasons why reformers had such a difficult time instituting reform were the demands that the laity placed on clergy and the ways the laity expressed their religious devotion. Ideally the Church was a spiritual body, but it inhabited the temporal world. Secular rulers often exercised more control over bishops and abbots than the Pope was able to exert. Clergymen were dependent on their parishioners for food, and communities demanded relief, care, and protection by the clerical institutions in their midst. Given the close interaction of the clergy and the laity on the local level, it would have been impossible for the medieval Church to escape the influence of worldly concerns.

Bishops and Rulers . While the medieval bishop enjoyed relative independence from his often-distant ecclesiastical superiors, the same could not be said of his relationship to his secular lord. Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth centuries, and the German rulers thereafter relied on clergymen to supply their leading civil servants. In fact, Henry the Fowler, the duke-king of Saxony (912–936) agreed to lead a federation of German nobles only if he was given control over the Church throughout Germany. He was granted his request. Such broad powers led to the creation in Germany of “prince-bishops,” churchmen who combined the responsibilities and prerogatives of a bishop and a prince of the Holy Roman Empire and who were always of the highest noble blood. Although the empire was the most extreme example, similar demands and compromises occurred throughout Europe. A bishop usually was a trusted subject of his sovereign and a member of the nobility. Because of their interest in appointing churchmen with the greatest administrative skills (who were not necessarily the most pious individuals), lords in Spain, France, England, and elsewhere were tempted to intervene in Church affairs. In fact, by the beginning of the eleventh century, it was extremely unusual for someone to become bishop against the will of his secular ruler. Indeed, his appointment was frequently dictated by political rather than spiritual merits. Although many of the bishops so selected were worthy and spiritual men, reform-minded clergy thought that these bishops were compromised by the method of their selection; it was easy to level against them the accusation that they had been chosen by favoritism or had purchased their offices outright.

Church Autonomy. By the late tenth century, it was obvious to many that the Church could not effectively retain its spiritual dimension if it continued to be so closely involved in temporal affairs. Reformers pointed to widespread simony (the purchase or sale of Church offices or preferments), clerical marriage, and clerical concubinage and connected these abuses to Church involvement in temporal affairs and the excessive meddling of the laity in Church business. Critical reflection on the experience of the Roman Empire led to a sustained effort to reform the Church or, as reformers such as Cardinal Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII) put it, to recover its liberty. Although the reformers who gathered around Pope Gregory VII and others like him were considered extreme, the desire to reform, or free, the Church colored many aspects of European life from the eleventh century onward. By the eleventh century, the struggle for the liberty and renewal of the Church had brought together the papacy and the mass of Christians. The first was interested particularly in freeing the Church from the domination of lay lords, while the laity was more interested in a fitter clergy. Their agendas had enough in common to ensure some popular support for the fight that the papacy was waging. When the papacy became more and more involved in attempts to control secular political events, however, its alliance with the lay population ended and even became hostile. Popular sentiment increasingly focused on ethical and mystical concerns that challenged a political papacy.

Problems with Church Offices. By the year 1000, it seemed clear to many that the personal unworthiness of many clerics had reached a crisis point and that the Church had reached an even more serious institutional crisis. Theoretically, the Church hierarchy was divided into degrees, each subordinate to the other; the Pope supervised archbishops, who supervised bishops, who supervised clerics. In effect, however, autonomy had become the rule, and the practice of subordination had been lost. In practice, a bishop within his diocese had no one to supervise him and check his actions. His decisions might eventually be appealed to the archbishop, but that could be done only at meetings of all the bishops, which, in the best of cases, only took place once a year. The process was extremely cumbersome, and appeals—if they were heard—could go on for years. Even more difficult to combat was the method by which many clergymen were appointed to their offices. As Christianity had expanded throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages, it had relied on secular lords to provide land and the other goods necessary to support parishes, monasteries, and eventually bishoprics. Pious laity were willing to endow these institutions but often on the condition that they have some say in running them. These “family churches” essentially became the private property of a noble house, which reserved lucrative appointments for family members. Attempts at reform ran directly into the legitimate legal rights of such families, and even pious secular lords were often hesitant to abandon rights and privileges that might prove vital to their descendants. Moreover, bishops and abbots of larger monasteries often were required to supply fighting men to the secular lords of the region, and sometimes even the clergy acted as warriors, such as Bishop Turpin in the eleventh-century Song of Roland. If reform were to take place in these establishments, it would require a redefinition of the clergy’s role in society, and that change was resisted in part by clergy and laity alike.

Reform in Bishoprics and Monasteries. Many of the reform movements that began in Christendom at large during the eleventh century had their roots in monastic reform movements that arose during the tenth century. Particularly influential in this regard was the monastery at Cluny in eastern France. Monastic movements had several key components that reformers attempted to apply to the Church as a whole. The first was the belief that the monastic life of contemplation and distance from worldly concerns was the most perfect Christian life; because clergymen needed to divorce themselves from secular preoccupations, sex and personal attachments, such as wives and concubines, were seen as especially dangerous. The second was the conviction that the Church, as Christ’s representative on earth, is superior to any secular power. As such, no clergyman—bishop, abbot, pope, or priest—should be controlled by a lay lord, because all clergymen were superior to all laity by dint of their sacred vows and the ability to transmit divine grace through the sacraments. Finally, the example of monastic reform demonstrated that changes are most effectively and quickly made through regulation from above. In the case of monastic reform, it led to greater centralization in the new religious orders such as the Cluniacs and Cistercians, and in the case of clerical reform in general it meant that the Pope should be the source of guidance and authority. Although these ideas remained principles instead of explicitly formulated doctrine, they guided reform movements throughout the rest of the Middle Ages and into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Reforming the Ministry. At the same time that some clergymen moved to separate the Church from secular governments, the medieval laity also called for increased attention to the needs of individual Christians. By the twelfth century there were more and more strident complaints about poor clerical behavior. Lay people criticized clerical drunkenness, avarice, sexual insatiability, ignorance of Christian teachings, and unwillingness or inability to perform the sacraments or even preach. Responding to these complaints and acting on their religious beliefs, Church leaders called for reform in the daily lives of the clergy. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215), in particular, passed wide-ranging decrees on these subjects. The council drew up guidelines on the degree of literacy required of a priest; it made plans for how frequently he had to preach and administer the sacraments; and it made regulations on how he should conduct himself in public and private. It even passed decrees about what sort of housekeeper a priest could have. One difficulty facing all Church reformers, however, was the lack of a strong infrastructure to put these decrees into effect; they relied on an individual reforming bishop or abbot for most effective change. These authorities conducted visitations, surveys of the churches, monasteries, and parishes for which they were responsible. Visiting an entire bishopric could be a lengthy process, and a diligent bishop examined institutions and individuals in detail. A bishop was commended for his zeal if he were able to visit most major establishments in his dioceses every two years, a timetable suggesting that even the most reform-minded bishop had difficulty in implementing far-reaching changes.

The Mendicants. One of the most influential reform movements of the Middle Ages was the mendicant reform led by Saints Dominic and Francis. The word mendicant means beggar, and the mendicant friars initially insisted on living from the proceeds of begging and owning no property, so that they could avoid the entanglements created when other orders became dependent on secular rulers for lands and income. In addition, mendicant orders responded to the increased need for an active ministry, particularly in growing market towns. St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) represents this active aspect of the mendicant movement. The son of a rich merchant, he renounced all his worldly goods in order to care for the sick, repair churches, and preach where he could. Once he received approval from Pope Innocent III in 1210, he began to organize his followers into a group of “friars” (from the Latin word fratres, which means brothers). Francis’s first guidelines (known as a Rule) for his order stressed poverty, simplicity, preaching, and service, but in 1223 he rewrote the Rule somewhat to provide a more-structured training and hierarchy for the extraordinary influx of new members. An important spiritual thinker, St. Francis also stressed the importance of education for his followers, especially as they were to preach and minister to the poor. By the thirteenth century some of Europe’s greatest thinkers—including Bonaventure, John Peckham, and Roger Bacon—were Franciscans. Like other reform movements, however, the Franciscans had troubles of their own, many of which stemmed from the issue of property. Despite his earliest vows, even during his lifetime St. Francis had to accept some property for his friars. Like other religious orders, the Franciscans were granted land, buildings, pensions, and other worldly goods to support their ministry. By the middle of the thirteenth century Popes had to intervene in disputes within the Franciscans over these properties. These disagreements eventually led to a split within the order by the end of the century.

Poverty and Reform. In fact, the issue of property was at the heart of medieval Church reform. The clergy needed some property so that they could survive and effectively minister to their congregations. These needs were always in a precarious balance with the corruptive influence of property,

REFORMING THE CLERGY

The following decrees from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) suggest the sort of problems that faced Church reformers during the Middle Ages:

All clerics shall carefully abstain from drunkenness. Wherefore, let them accommodate the wine to themselves, and themselves to the wine. Nor shall anyone be encouraged to drink, for drunkenness banishes reason and incites to lust. We decree, therefore, that that abuse be absolutely abolished by which in some localities the drinkers bind themselves … to an equal portion of drink and he in their judgment is the hero of the day who outdrinks the others. Should anyone be culpable in this matter, unless he heeds the warning of the superior and makes suitable satisfaction, let him be suspended from his benefice or office.
We forbid hunting and fowling to all clerics; wherefore, let them not presume to keep dogs and birds for these purposes. …
Clerics shall not hold secular offices or engage in secular and, above all, dishonest pursuits. They shall not attend the performances of mimics and buffoons, or theatrical representations. They shall not visit taverns except in case of necessity, namely, when on a journey. They are forbidden to play games of chance or be present at them. They must have a becoming crown and tonsure and apply themselves diligently to the study of the divine offices and other useful subjects. Their garments must be worn clasped at the top and neither too short nor too long. They are not to use red or green garments or curiously sewed together gloves, or beak-shaped shoes or gilded bridles, saddles, pectoral ornaments (for horses), spurs, or anything else indicative of superfluity. At the divine office in the church they are not to wear cappas [capes with hoods] with long sleeves, and priests and dignitaries may not wear them elsewhere except in case of danger when circumstances should require a change of outer garments. Buckles may under no condition be worn, nor sashes having ornaments of gold or silver, nor rings, unless it be in keeping with the dignity of their office. All bishops must use in public and in the church outer garments made of linen, except those who are monks, in which case they must wear the habit of their order; in public they must not appear with open mantles, but these must be clasped either on the back of the neck or on the bosom.

Source: H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation and Commentary (St. Louis: Herder, 1937), canons 15 and 16; from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook < http://wwwibrdham.edu/halsall/source/ht4-sekct.html>

particularly the danger that the clergy might focus too much on worldly concerns. For this reason, many medieval reform movements attempted to distance themselves from property ownership. Their stress on poverty, however, placed them in an ambiguous relationship with the rest of society. Medieval society distinguished between the worthy and unworthy poor. Those who chose poverty for spiritual reasons were classified with the worthy and thus deserved aid from the rest of the Christian community. Yet, medieval society also tended to classify people on the basis of outward appearance. Kings and clergy did not wear luxurious fabrics just because they wanted to and could afford them; their subjects and congregations expected these displays. Moreover, assisting pious individuals was considered a good deed that could help assure a donor’s place in heaven. For this reason successful reformers who practiced extreme poverty could find themselves deluged with gifts. Finally, by challenging the legitimacy of the Church holding property and by demanding clerical poverty, reformers threatened the entire infrastructure of the medieval Church and risked alienating many of their more materialistic colleagues. It is not surprising that some of the more-radical groups that insisted on extreme poverty, such as the Frate-celli, were excommunicated and prosecuted.